Who participates and how much? Explaining non-attendance and the frequency of attending arts and heritage activities

In this paper, we propose the use of the zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) model to analyze cultural participation patterns in arts and heritage activities. This model allows us to analyze the difference between non-attendees and attendees, while simultaneously analyzing the frequency of participation of the attendees. This makes it possible to differentiate between factors that are related to the thresholds of participation, and factors that influence the frequency of participation in cultural activities. We use data from the “Participation Survey in Flanders 2009” (N = 2514) to analyze factors related to cultural capital (schooling level, art participation of the parents), economic factors (financial resources) social factors (social network size) and time pressure (work and family situation) on both dimensions of arts and heritage participation, while taking gender differences into account. The group of non-attendees consists of people with lower levels of cultural capital, they are more often single and have a smaller social network. Cultural capital is also positively related with the frequency of attendance, and financial, social and time constraints related to childcare are negatively related to the frequency of attendance. Constraints related to childcare are stronger for women. Working full time on the other hand, increases the participation rates of women, while this is not the case for men.